My ego wouldnt let this mellenia end without me
defining the high point of this, the first century of the audio arts. This
is my job as Guildmeister, and quite frankly with the intense thermionic creativity
going down all over the world, I was up against the wall. How could I create
one piece of audio gear that would embrace the entire century of tube art?
Because I was stumped I emailed Duke Ellington because I can always count
on him to take me to a higher place, especially when he is playing for me
in my living room.......

And it worked and I immediately flashed back to a conversation
I had at David Bernings workbench when I saw some Nuvistors...and my
heart jumped a beat....there arent many of us left alive who know what
they are. There werent many who were brave and stupid enough to wrestle
with these 1/2 inch long metal little tubes ( Nuvistors were introduced
to be the first subminiature tube and two years latter in 1956 transistors
appeared and end of Nuvistors) which love to sing (microphonic)...and David
and I ruminated about our Nuvistor suffering. At one time during the early
days of New York Audio Labs I manufactured the worlds only Nuvistor
moving coil cartridge head amp and a Nuvistor power supply for the Win Strain
Gauge cartridge....cool, but stupid, stupid.

So as soon as the Duke did his job I got on the phone
and called David...my only nuvistor soul mate...and described the challenge
I was facing and then I asked David if he would pass judgment on my concept
for defining the high moment of the first century of the audio arts. I would
only proceed if David agreed that this concept was the crowning achievement
of the tube arts for this century. He did and got so excited about the concept
that he demanded to do the design work.

ASCEND TO MICROPOWER

Put on your seat belts we are about to launch our rocket
powered thermionic dialectical express sled...we are blasting off into the
time conundrum of the audio arts. If we want to experience the "Big Bang"
we have to go back to a time when a one watt amplifier was equivalent to an
Atomic Bomb, in terms of power. If we want to expand our hearing bandwidth
so hear we can hear the first moment of creation we need an amplifier that
can produce the kind of power that sparked the explosion of the audio arts
that we are all now surfing........but only amplified in refinement.

Now you will under understand why THE BIG BANG AMPLIFIER,
the worlds first and only:

ALL NUVISTOR TRIODE (ONLY ON PER CHANNEL ) SINGLE ENDED AMPLIFIER
THAT CAN PRODUCE A GUT WRENCHING 250 MILLIWATTS OF TRIODE GLORY....

with

(now buckle your potty safety belt)

ALL NUVISTOR SWITCHING POWER SUPPLY

(CHECK SCHEMATIC)

THE CONCRESENCE OF THERMIONIC COOLOSITY

HAS BEEN REDEFINED

Look at the schematic....mind blowing isnt it. Have
you ever seen anything simpler, proving that I am the master of LESS IS MORE.
Of course this is possible because the Nuvistor has a gain of over 100.....and
David and I discovered the one company in the world that can make both the
special single-ended output transformers and the torroids for the Nuvistor
switching power supply.

But as you know the specs never describe the real world
performance of any circuit, which is why I spent two weeks auditioning the
pre-production amplifier to be sure of my conclusions. I also invited friends
for their own independent evaluation.What is so mind blowing about this amplifier
is that the audio circuitry is only two inches by three inches.

IBS TRANSFORMER COMPANY

THE MASTERS OF MINIATURIZATION

The high tech world of electronics is amazing and we wonder
how it is possible to get thousands of transistors in a tiny chip....and how
it is possible to wind a output transformer that is only one half inch square.
Obviously the transformers are the key to the success of this circuit and
they are true works of art. To appreciate them you must look at them under
a microscope to see how precise the windings are. These are open frame designs.

Clearly, custom made transformers were needed. We were
very fortunate that the IBS Transformer Winders Co. Inc. who are the
masters of high tech micro transformers, got excited about this project. IBS
is a family run business and David and I made an appointment to meet with
them to design exactly what we needed and to watch how these little transformer
jewels were made.

Mr. Itsy Bitsy Spider, the president
and chief engineer greeted us at the door and immediately took us to his winding
shop. David and I counted twenty four spiders in white lab coats spinning
spider wire on to the ferro-beetle cores (Note: ferro beetle cores are made
from beetles who live in Pennsylvania iron mines). We then were introduced
to the "master winders" who migrated from Switzerland years ago
where they were employed in the watch business. We watched as they took the
ultra-fine spider web wire and wrapped around the ferro beetle cores...at
an amazing rate of speed and with great precision with all ten hands operating
at full speed. What was so amazing to me was how incredibly small all of the
transformers were.....but from a spiders point of view.... they are
gigantic.

Over the next two weeks David received many different
samples from IBS and built some prototypes and sent them to me for auditioning.
David and I agreed that one type of output transformer, not only measured
much better, but there was no doubt that it was more dynamic, had better harmonics
and generally had the best expanded aural matrix....and it was made with pregnant
Mexican Tarantula spider web wire....which is extremely expensive...and rare.

THE SECRET OF SOUND QUALITY OF THIS AMPLIFIER

Because I believe hard wiring sounds best, David and I
were faced with another challenge...wiring up the circuit for production.
I suggested that the best strategy was for David to get very very small so
he could supervise the manufacturing at the "grass roots" level
and he agreed. I watched with a magnifying glass as David schelped around
resisters and how he used his teensy beensy blow torch to solder all the connections.
When David got into trouble wiring the Nuvistors, because of their very fine
wire pins, Itsy Bitsy Spider and an apprentice spider winder were there in
a jiffy to help David complete the work.

HOW DOES THE BIG BANG SOUND?

This is the most unusual amplifier I have every experienced.
For example:

As you know one of the great advantage of using switching
power supplies with tubes is that they create very quite circuits. This is
especially important with Nuvistors which were put on this Earth to turn audio
designers into jelly fish.

The last time I experienced the kind of beautiful silence
this amplifier is capable of, was when I was crossing the Nefu desert with
Lawrence of Arabia... at night with all of the stars of the cosmos twinkling
above. With the Big Bang you are directly connected back to that moment of
silence right before...the Big Bang happened....you are almost at The Twang
Before The Big Bang....the noise floor is minus 250 db!

This project would have been a complete failure if the
circuit was not cable of producing the kind of dynamic music energy we associate
with the Big Bang...the creator moment....which is also possible to feel when
we are the potty the morning after the typical American Thanksgiving feast.
You know the glory of experiencing that primal moment of reality.

I feel very fortunate that I may be the only critic in
the audio industry to be a qualified judge of dynamics...and it is because
of an accident I had in Hawaii. In 1996 I was in Hawaii for the International
Thermionic Surfing Contest....champions from all over the world came and demonstrated
their skills at surfing the amazing thermionic waves that travel from east
to west all across the Pacific. All the greats are there from all over the
world. I was especially impressed by the cool surfing skills of Team Eskimo
.

During a break in the competition I decided to jog up
to the top of Mona Kauai volcano carrying my surf board for some exercise
and just as I got to the top I started to feel a rumble...and the rumble got
more intense......I was thrown to the ground....Holy Cow... I am in the middle
of a volcanic eruption...and it is during moments like this I am so thankful
for my training in the U. S. Army........I looked over my shoulder and see
a lava flow heading right for me.....I grab my thermionic surf board, jumped
on it as the lava flow reached me and I am surfing a volcanic eruption....there
I am surfing on a lava flow down the side of Mono Kauai..... which is why
I can judge dynamics better than any other...and let me assure you this is
the most dynamic amplifier I have ever experienced....and it emerges out of
the volcano that is erupting in the audio arts......and the hot lava flow
is your imagination....and it sounds great with all of the Madonnas
records, when I am chewing gum.

SOME TECHNICAL NOTES

You probably noticed: there is no insertion loss in the
IBS transformer which means it has zero resistance, which is pretty amazing
because it implies that pregnant Mexican tarantula web wire is super-conductive.
When we realized this, David and I realized that, quite by accident, we had
made the breakthrough in superconductivity and should start a new high tech
electronics e-commerce company and do an IPO and become billionaires.

HOW TO USE THIS AMPLIFIER

This is a potentially lethal weapon, and I must demand
that you do not show it to, or play it for, anyone who owns one of those mega-amplifiers...tube
or transistor. With shark lawyers ready to sue anyone for anything, you could
be sued by one of these wrong-headed owners, because once you show him your
Big Bang Amplifier which is only 4.5 x4.5 inch, and weights 4.4 ounces, and
he has a heart attack........hello law suit.

The Big Bang is not for everyone but for the man who wants
to make a statement, this is major indeed.

A mono pair cost $284,567.30 and offers Ongaku owners
the opportunity to ascend to a much higher and more expensive place.